Congratulations to Rob Strange, chief executive of the Institution of Occupational Health and Safety, on his robust and sensible defence of health and safety following the Sassy and Single piece in the Oxford Mail last week.

There is a necessary place for a continuing awareness of health and safety issues in our lives but it must be a balanced awareness.

As a former member of IOSH and for 30 years an inspector with HM Factory Inspectorate and the Health and Safety Executive I have come to despair of the rubbish aired publicly about health and safety issues.

The mandarins running the HSE should have made energetic efforts to state clearly what is required in health and safety considerations, and scotched the wilder rumours. I doubt that the various inspectorates within the HSE are, outside of inspection work, encouraged to propagate professional standards and attitudes. Let the professionals regain the voice on H&S issues. The mandarins have failed.

On the issue of snow clearance from public paths, I recall, as a child, that the householders in Oxford cleared the snow from the paths outside their houses. Perhaps there was a by-law then. But perhaps it was that the public spirit was greater then than it is now and people were not put off using their common sense.

David Manners, Oxford